Lawyers decry CAC’s AI portal, cite challenges

The Corporate Affairs Commission’s (CAC) new AI-powered registration portal has been plagued by technical issues, causing frustration and challenges for businesses in Nigeria.

Despite the commission’s promise to streamline the business registration process, lawyers say the portal has made it difficult for businesses to operate efficiently.

On 30 June, the commission announced the introduction of a new Artificial Intelligence AI-powered registration portal. At the time, Hussaini Magaji, registrar-general/chief executive officer of CAC, said the portal represents a complete overhaul of the commission’s existing Company Registration Portal (CRP).

Mr Magaji stated that name reservation was now poised to be as easy as opening an email account where instant approvals were granted for available names. According to him, the system was intelligently built to suggest alternatives for selection and immediate approval.

He added that another special feature introduced is to allow business registration with only National Identification Number (NIN) of a director or proprietor, stating that CAC’s target time for business registration was now under 30 minutes to generate certificate and deliver to the customers email is subject to real-time NIN verification.

However, lawyers who act as registration agents told PREMIUM TIMES that the portal has been inaccessible for weeks, with customers unable to perform critical tasks, including the inability to conduct name searches, register business names, file post-incorporation documents, and submit annual returns.

The situation, they said, has also raised concerns about the ease of doing business in Nigeria, with potential investors likely to be deterred by the commission’s system issues.

Usually, the process of registering a business name may take one to two weeks, depending on the CAC workload and other factors, according to the commission. A registrant can do it themselves or engage an agent, usually a lawyer.

The lawyers who spoke to this newspaper on Thursday said the portal, which was supposed to improve efficiency, has instead resulted in numerous challenges, including inability to conduct name searches, register business names, file post-incorporation documents, and submit annual returns.

They expressed frustration with the commission’s handling of the situation, citing a lack of transparency and communication about the issues and the timeline for resolution, speculating that the commission’s actions may frustrate the system and justify the proposed fee hike scheduled to take effect in August.

CAC had in June announced a planned review of its service fees, effective 1 August. According to the commission, the decision was made after careful consideration of prevailing economic realities, rising operational costs, and stakeholder engagement.

The commission stated that the review of fees is crucial to ensuring that the commission continues to provide prompt, efficient, and technology-driven services that meet the expectations of its Stakeholders for the benefit of the Nigerian economy.

Lawyers speak

An Abuja-based lawyer, Yomi Ogunsanya, said the current situation has made it difficult for businesses to operate efficiently.

“We have been facing the issue for over a week now. We just woke up one day and discovered that the whole portal has been changed and we discovered that they are trying to introduce AI we were not informed about initially. Meanwhile, in June, the commission issued a notice of increase in fees scheduled to take off from 1 August. Just a month to that we can’t even do anything on the platform. We can access it but we can’t do anything.

“It is affecting the ease of doing business. I have someone that gave me a job and for over a week I can’t even do the registration. If you are coming into the country for any investment and you want to register your company and your lawyer is telling you that he cannot get a new reservation for you within 7 days. There is nothing like ease of doing business again in this situation,” Mr Ogunsanya said.

He explained that availability of name search could not be conducted as the AI portal was indiscriminately rejecting names searched by customers ‘unintelligently’.

“Post incorporation portal not working as customers could not file changes to their company, and unable to file yearly Annual Returns. Business name registration portal not also working and now we cannot register business name or file post incorporation for close to two weeks now and two weeks to the proposed hike in fees,” he said.

Another Abuja-based lawyer, Olalekan Oladapo, recounted his experience with the portal, highlighting the difficulties he faced in accessing the portal and registering a business name.

“I think like every other system in Nigeria, when people are going through a transition process, people have a lot of challenges. Personally, I have encountered a lot of challenges in getting through the process. So, the first thing that happened to me, the first challenge is, I discovered that I could not access my portal, I could not log in, and all that, it was frustrating. So, each time I tried to log in, it brought out that my usernames were duplicated, and all that,” he said.

Mr Oladapo explained that doing business has been terrible, they are making business so difficult for us, they are even making our clients even lose confidence.

He added that the commission issued a belated notice about the upgrade, which did not acknowledge the existing issues or provide a clear timeline for resolution.

“Last Friday the commission issued a belated notice that it will be upgrading over the weekend, and normal activities will resume on Monday 14 July but as I speak to you now, nothing can be done on the portal, even payments are not going through. No new company registration can be done now, as name search/availability can not be successfully conducted,” he added.

He said there’s a lack of a feedback mechanism from the commission, making it difficult for them to report issues or seek assistance.

“There are a myriad of problems and it appears those at the helms are unbothered and care less. No acknowledgement of customer’s issues and no assurance of resolving it.”

According to him, all these may be a deliberate attempt by the commission to make people pay more from August thereby deliberately frustrating the system by tampering with it and with no resolution in sight.

“We had, in the public domain, that they will increase fees by 1 August, and they will bring some of their services back. But now, people are trying to pay for the services. For example, in my own situation, I wanted to pay so that I would not be caught with the new increment. Because my client has already paid. I charge the fees from the current situation. We don’t know whether this is a deliberate plan on the part of CAC for not making the payment platform working,” he said.

Arome Okwori, a Jos-based lawyer, expressed concern that the situation may deter investors, who may be unable to register their companies or conduct business in Nigeria.

“There should be a human face to this thing. AI or not, what we are saying is people are suffering and you are adding to the pain of the people. It is very disappointing and worrisome because the issue may discourage potential investors,” he said.

Another lawyer, Obinna Orji, said: “Recently their portal is having some glitches. Loading up of the portal, unsuccessful remita transactions due to the glitches, you can’t make payment for filling fees.”

When asked about the effect of the development on the country’s ease of doing business, Mr Orji added that it will definitely affect the ease of doing business, “depending on the kind/nature of the business,” he said.

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CAC responds

When reached by PREMIUM TIMES on Friday evening, Dominic Inyang, the Director, Public Affairs, Corporate Affairs Commission, CAC, acknowledged the issues, noting that the system is now working optimally.

“We have some glitches but it’s now working optimally. Yes, there were some issues, this is technology; it is not man-made. Our system is up and doing now,” he said.

Nigeria ranked 169th out of 190 countries in the World Bank’s Ease of doing business in 2016, compared to 170th in 2015 and 147th in 2014.

In 2020, Nigeria moved 15 places up the ladder according to the World Bank’s EDB report to 131st from 146th position in 2019.

In 2016, late President Muhammadu Buhari established the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), in line with the federal government’s economic recovery and growth plan (ERGP 2017-2020).

The plan targeted improving Nigeria’s ranking and pushing the country to be amongst the top 70 countries in the World Bank doing business index by 2023.